Table 4-1 Sound material-recycle society business: market scale in Japan

Supply of machinery, equipment and plants	Supply of services	Supply of materials, final consumer goods
Business examples	·Intermediate treatment plants·Melting equipment·RDF manufacturing/using facilities·Oil manufacturing facilities from plastics·Composting equipment from kitchen waste·Plant construction·Construction of final disposal sites	·Waste treatment·Resource recovery·Recycling	·Reclaimed oil from plastics·PET-recycled fiber·Products made of timber from forest-thinning·Recycled products (e.g. scrap metals)·Products made from reclaimed items (e.g. recycled paper)·Refillable products·Repairs of machinery, furniture·Housing improvement, repairs	Total
Market and employment scale	·Manufacture of equipment and materials for preventing pollution (waste-related)·Construction and installation of machinery and equipment (waste-related)	·Supply of services (waste-related)	·Recycled materials·Repairs
2000	806.5 billion yen	27,536 billion yen	169,800 billion yen	205,401 billion yen
2006	5,339 billion yen	31,874 billion yen	259,523 billion yen	296,736 billion yen
2000	1,872 people	195,292 people	331,513 people	528,677 people
2006	7,049 people	139,667 people	485,816 people	632,533 people

Source: Materials published by the Central Environment Council

their recycling abilities in response to the state of individual items such as developing new purposes for recycled resources. Usage of recycled products and market development have been promoted, through the active utilization of recycled products by all bodies including the State, local governments, business operators and citizens, also taking into account that recycled resources and recycled products tend to be relatively expensive compared to products made from virgin materials. As for the procurement results of the State and other entities concerning designated procurement items (types of environmental goods of which procurement should be promoted intensively by entities such as the State) for 2006, procurement of goods that satisfy the evaluation criteria had accounted for a high proportion of the total amount for most items, and exceeded 95%, including the items newly designated in FY 2006.

Also, a variety of projects to promote the improvement of industrial waste treatment services, which will be the foundation for establishing a Sound Material-Cycle Society, have been implemented.

In addition, projects have been carried out in order to foster so-called “local community business”

## (3) Utilization of economic instruments

As for waste problems generated by the day-to-day activities of large numbers of people, there are certain limits to the results that can be achieved through the existing regulatory measures, which are centered on the regulation of large-scale sources and certain activities. Therefore, to cope with the problem, it is necessary to combine various policy instruments such as regulatory, economic and voluntary approaches, and implement their appropriate utilization.

Responding to the establishment of a discretionary tax system for specific purposes by the Omnibus Decentralization Act enforced in April 2000, from the viewpoint of respecting tax autonomy, many of the local governments are making moves toward the introduction of waste taxes.

According to a Ministry of the Environment survey, as of January 2009, ordinances concerning local discretionary taxes for specific purposes related to industrial wastes are enacted in 27 prefectures out of 47 (Mie, Tottori, Okayama, Hiroshima, Aomori, Iwate, Akita, Shiga, Nara, Yamaguchi, Niigata, Miyagi, Kyoto, Shimane, Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Oita, Kagoshima, Miyazaki, Kumamoto, Fukushima, Aichi, Okinawa, Hokkaido, Yamagata, Ehime) and in one ordinance-designated city out of 60 (Kitakyushu).

## (4) Promotion of education and learning, enhancement of public relations activities, support for civil activities, and human resources development

In addition, “Community Support Projects toward the Realization of a Sound Material-Cycle Society” were implemented by first collecting ideas from the public for efforts toward the realization of a Sound Material-Cycle Society centering on the 3Rs. Such projects would be carried out through the cooperation of each body including civil groups such as NGOs and NPOs, business operators and local governments,; the projects should be pioneering, ingenious, and at the same time, generally applicable to other areas.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry implemented projects such as the lending of “Let’s Go, 3Rs”, a DVD for heightening awareness aimed at people of all ages, in order to promote the ordinary citizen’s active and voluntary participation in 3Rs activity in an easy-to-understand manner. Also, along with installing or lending learning materials for 3Rs education such as container and package recycling materials to local learning bases, local energy-saving reuse promotion projects were implemented with the cooperation of local business operators and consumers.

Also, projects such as the holding of the Japan Environmen-